What to read while travelling Northern Germany?
September 16, 2013 2:51 PM Subscribe
Can you recommend an intelligent, entertaining book about the Hanseatic League?
I'm travelling to Northern Germany in a couple of weeks, heading to Hamburg and Lübeck and Stralsund and places around there. It strikes me this is exactly the territory from the Hanseatic League. So to enjoy my visit more I'd like to read up on the history and culture of that place and time. I also visited Bergen a couple years back, would be nice to connect that in context.
I like intelligent books but I'm also a bit of a lazy reader; I don't want to wade through a dry history. I'd prefer entertaining non-fiction but historically based fiction is welcome too. Books like this I've liked in the past include The Fatal Shore (Australia) and The Perfect Heresy (Cathar France). This MeFi discussion recommends Dollinger's The German Hansa but that seems a bit too academic for me as well as hard to obtain.
I'm travelling to Northern Germany in a couple of weeks, heading to Hamburg and Lübeck and Stralsund and places around there. It strikes me this is exactly the territory from the Hanseatic League. So to enjoy my visit more I'd like to read up on the history and culture of that place and time. I also visited Bergen a couple years back, would be nice to connect that in context.
I like intelligent books but I'm also a bit of a lazy reader; I don't want to wade through a dry history. I'd prefer entertaining non-fiction but historically based fiction is welcome too. Books like this I've liked in the past include The Fatal Shore (Australia) and The Perfect Heresy (Cathar France). This MeFi discussion recommends Dollinger's The German Hansa but that seems a bit too academic for me as well as hard to obtain.
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. Rise and fall of a Hanseatic trading family in Lubeck. Warning: long. But definitely not dry.
posted by Logophiliac at 4:09 PM on September 16, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Logophiliac at 4:09 PM on September 16, 2013 [3 favorites]
As Meades notes, the Hansa cities seem somewhat unloved by English-speaking travel writers compared to Venice or Trieste; relatedly, Jan Morris touches on them in her Fifty Years of Europe: An Album (aka Europe: An Intimate Journey), but only briefly.
I haven't read Michael Gorra's book -- the reviews are mixed and suggest it has a bit of the Brysons about it -- but it might be worth a punt, and the Amazon preview reveals a decent bibliography.
posted by holgate at 4:41 PM on September 16, 2013
I haven't read Michael Gorra's book -- the reviews are mixed and suggest it has a bit of the Brysons about it -- but it might be worth a punt, and the Amazon preview reveals a decent bibliography.
posted by holgate at 4:41 PM on September 16, 2013
Best answer: Well, since you didn't like my Dollinger suggestion (tsk!) (just kidding--it is a bit dense), here are some others you might like.
Helen Zimmern's The Hansa Towns is a bit old but still informative (Archive.org free download)
If you're interested in the Hansa and their relationship with England, this is a good source. (Archive.org)
I haven't read this one but it seems useful.
Musn't forget the Teutonic Knights. Here's a good book about them.
Finally, this book has a section on the Hanseatic League that first piqued my interest on the subject when I was a high school junior, so I'm including it for sentimental reasons.
Also: travel to Visby if you can! That's the center of early Hansa activity and is, I'm told, one of the most well-preserved medieval towns. Take lots of photos!
posted by orrnyereg at 12:24 AM on September 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
Helen Zimmern's The Hansa Towns is a bit old but still informative (Archive.org free download)
If you're interested in the Hansa and their relationship with England, this is a good source. (Archive.org)
I haven't read this one but it seems useful.
Musn't forget the Teutonic Knights. Here's a good book about them.
Finally, this book has a section on the Hanseatic League that first piqued my interest on the subject when I was a high school junior, so I'm including it for sentimental reasons.
Also: travel to Visby if you can! That's the center of early Hansa activity and is, I'm told, one of the most well-preserved medieval towns. Take lots of photos!
posted by orrnyereg at 12:24 AM on September 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
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If you get to Lübeck, make sure you go to the Niederegger cafe. It's the campest place I've ever been in my entire life, and seemingly unaware of it. You'd need to like marzipan, though.
posted by Grangousier at 2:57 PM on September 16, 2013 [3 favorites]